Riding the Dakota Oil Boom

By

Mark Peters And

Ben Lefebvre

November 2, 2011

DICKINSON, N.D.—A surge in crude-oil production in North Dakota is fueling a railroad boom in one of the nation's most remote regions, as producers bet that trains will be a quick and lucrative way to break a transportation bottleneck.

The steady conveyor belt of jet-black rail cars is just the latest change in this state's western corner. Already clusters of trailers, known as man camps, have popped up in pasture lands outside of small towns like Watford City, N.D., to house oil workers. Watford City has gone from a...